Key word in that sentence being "was". The last album was a major disappointment. I got super excited by all the teasers, and the bleaked out stuff is pretty cool but the thrash side of things is lame. Bummer.

Just scored myself a Pedaltrain 2/hardcase and a new MXR Carbon Copy! Decided it was high time I started hunting down some new bits and pieces. Annoyingly, I seem to have run out of patch cables so I haven't tested it all out together but still!

Anyway, I'm in dire need of a power supply for all of these pedals. I know the Pedaltrain itself is designed for the Voodoo Labs stuff and includes brackets to house it, but it's a little on the pricey side. Therefore, can any one suggest a good power supply brick that's super reliable but slightly easier on the wallet?

And now for the obligatory picture with a guest appearance from my feet:

Removing and reinserting the power tubes seemed to solve the problem last night, putting it down to movement shaking it loose really. What I'm curious about now is the weird buffer on the left power tube in the photo I posted! Seems pretty strange but I don't want to remove it incase something happens and it's actually there for a reason?

I figured it might be something along those lines, my house is ridiculously dusty after all. Reckon I'll need to do anything if I take that buffer out? I can't see a reason for it either but I'm curious!

UPDATE: Removing and reinserting the tubes seemed to solve the problem last night. What I'm really curious about now is this weird buffer in between the left tube and the amp itself (See picture)!

I come two you with one, possibly two problems with my 6505+. I bought the amp brand new in 2009, blew a power tube and within about a month of replacing the power tubes stopped having to use the amp. Instead of selling it, I held onto the amp and periodically tested it to make sure everything was in working order.

Fast forward to now: Over the past month I have been using the amp regularly, transporting it to and from band practice and even giving it a bit of light home use, nothing to strenuous really. Tonight at practice, the amp suffered a very strange loss in volume similar to a cable going bad so I did the logical thing, unplugged everything and ran straight from guitar to amp with a single lead. The problem was still there so I swapped cables and tried out my bandmate's guitar just to make sure it wasn't any more of my gear and the issue was still there.

It was at this point my bandmate pointed out that one of my power tubes is actually raised on some kind of buffer. I thought that power tubes should be level in the amp but when I got it re-tubed I didn't know much in the way of tube amps and it worked fine so I never questioned it. See attached picture. (Note: there seems to be a small gap between the buffer and the tube itself, I have since fixed this).

I have since come home, removed and reinserted my power tubes and everything seems to be working again. Who knows, maybe moving it about more than it's ever been used to just loosened the tubes a bit, but I'm still curious to find out about this little buffer.

Sorry for the insane wall of text but it's possible the back story might help in working out what might have caused the loss in volume and what the buffer contraption is! Thanks in advance!

Hi guys, I've not posted here in a while but I have a new guitar (Ibanez S2170 ) on the way so I figured I'd ask here before I start making changes to it.

I'm keen to get an EMG 81 installed in the bridge position while leaving the passive stock pickups in the middle & neck positions. I have heard of combining active and pickups causing problems before but people seem to have found ways round it so I'm not too worried about that.

What I am curious about is the selector switch. An EMG 81 isn't (as far as I know) a splittable pickup, rendering the second position of the 5 way selector pretty much useless unless you could get the active EMG to run in parallel with the passive middle pickup. In the long run, would I be better looking at a splittable EMG or considering replacing the 5 way selector with a 3 way one?

I have seen this set up installed before so it must be possible in some way but I don't have a way to contact the people I've seen using it. So, I'm turning to you guys! Any suggestions would be helpful.

"Here it is, the long over-due guitar play through of Weaver. Sweaty hands and a food baby don't constitute a good play through but I said I'd do this months ago and it'll give you an idea. Hope everybody has had a good Christmas, we'll be back in the new year with some new songs and (hopefully) some new members!"

Thanks in advance to anybody who checks the video/us out! Further links to free music in my sig.

So I was browsing some Fuzz Universe on youtube and I ran across loads of comments comparing Paul to Slash, and it nearly gave me an aneurysm. I was suddenly reminded why I had strayed away from youtube for a long time.

This is the new band I'm working on just now. We're still trying to find a vocalist so we've been writing and demo-ing away. We've uploaded a few new demos but you can acquire our original two song demo for FREE via our BandCamp or Soundcloud if you so desire!

I definitely enjoyed listening, even if it is sort of standard melodeath. I agree with EpiExplorer about expanding your sound with some folk/symphonic elements. I'm a sucker for keyboards and orchestras though! The acoustic section in The Captain's Chanson is great. Good recording quality too, what did you guys use for it?

The G string is borderline on needing to be wound. You can get them either plain or wound. They seem to intonate better when wound. It's one of those things that no matter how much I tweak it never really sounds perfect.

Using a wound for the G was the greatest thing I ever chose to do. Not sure how it works for higher tuning but for intonating lower down it's perfect. I recently got hold of (by accident) a set of Ernie Ball Not Even Slinkies with an unwound 22 and it's awful, need to get a new wound ASAP!

My band has just uploaded a clip of a new song we're working on. It's fully written but the recording process is still a work in progress. We'll hopefully have a few more new bits and pieces up soon with more to come when we have a full line up.

You can also download our old two track demo FOR FREE via the Bandpage tab on our Facebook, our Bandcamp or our Soundcloud.

Link to our Facebook is in my sig. If you have time, it'd be great if you checked us out or shared us about or something! Enjoy.

I'm working on a song just now and I had the idea to put in a little flamenco section. Could somebody give me a few recommendations of flamenco music based in 3/4 time, so I can analyse them before writing my own music.

Been getting into Meshuggah lately, and I have a raging boner for Animals As Leaders. I've been wanting to find more of this sort of heady/mathy metal, particularly in the death metal style. Also been digging Atheist but I want more of the super low, chuggy stuff (with polyrhythms/polymeter, out-there themes, etc). Can anybody helllllp meeeee?

Thought some of you guys might appreciate this. Suppose some people might call it "deathcore" but I don't think it falls into that category and don't really know what to describe it as - suggestions welcome! New stuff is a little proggier (no djent), hopefully have new songs (and members) for you all soon.

No Inquisition before Virtuoso? Man give Invoking The Majestic Throne of Satan a listen ASAP class A stuff, every one of their albums is fantastic too so just grab any one of them and you're all set! Their earliest material is very different though, still good but it's straight up tech thrash. The comp collecting it is also worth a listen.

Thanks guys, will check these out ASAP! Probably check out the tech thrash stuff too